1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns an electronic equipment communication system that has electronic equipment and an external device connected to the electronic equipment and by which communication takes place between the two, an external device to be used in this system, electronic equipment, and an electronic equipment communication method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With various kinds of external devices connected to electronic equipment, such as an entertainment device for home use, by connecting the external device it is possible to enjoy games or, connected to the Internet, to search for information. Taking for example a controller for operating an entertainment device, there are many different kinds, including standard controllers, controllers having a vibrator, and special controllers whose settings are set in accordance with the type of game.
If such an external device is connected to electronic equipment, in order to control the external device on the side of the main body of electronic equipment, it is necessary to build into the electronic equipment an external device control program known as a device driver, and a device driver must be available for every type of external device.
Previously such device drivers have been prerecorded on a CD-ROM or other recording medium together with the game program or other application in a general entertainment device, being called into the memory in the entertainment device when a game program is executed, thus making it possible to control the external device with the electronic equipment. In the type of electronic equipment having a hard disk, etc., all the device drivers are recorded on the hard disk, and a device driver for the connected external device is used by being called into memory.
However, there are the following problems in the method of building in device drivers in such electronic equipment.
Namely, in a new-model electronic equipment that has downward compatibility enabling it to execute applications that are used in an old-model electronic equipment, if one executes a previous application, no device driver to control the new model external device that is connected to the new-model electronic equipment will be recorded in the recording medium on which this application is recorded, so the external device cannot be used without making some modification thereto.
To prevent this, it is necessary to provide downward compatibility so that the new-model external device can be operated even with an old-model device driver. But giving external devices downward compatibility leads to higher cost and constitutes a major constraint in developing new-model external devices.
Also, although higher performance is pursued in newer controllers or other operation terminals, such as faster communication speed to keep up with improvements in processing speed of newer electronic equipment, this performance cannot be fully elicited when operating with an old-model device driver.
In addition, in the case of electronic equipment that has a hard disk, by providing the external device with a floppy disk on which the device driver is recorded and installing it on the hard disk, even with a previous application one can operate in the state in which the performance of the new-model external device is elicited. However, the installing of the driver requires a certain level of technical knowledge, making it difficult for beginners, and also difficult to adopt this method for home-use equipment such as entertainment devices.
Therefore what has been wanted was an electronic equipment communication system that would make it possible to call forth all the performance of the external device even if it is a previous application, and in which there would be no need for any complicated operation such as installing a device driver or other control program.